Missing in Action
by SharanMcQuack
Summary: Launchpad's Dad, Ripcord is missing. Launchpad goes to rescue his dad.


**Missing In Action**  
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.  


* * *

  
With a sort of thanks to Q Illespont, author of "OPPOSITE RECIPROCAL", for giving me the idea for this story and may you never need Launchpad's help. Even if he'd give it to you, anyway.  


* * *

  
One early spring afternoon, Launchpad and I were puttering around in our vegetable garden in our back yard. We were trying to decide what we should plant and how much of each we should plant.

Then Littleduck, agent of SHUSH appeared out of nowhere.  
"Excuse me, Agent Double O Duck..." he began.

"YOU again? I keep telling you, I'm NOT an agent!" Launchpad said.

"Perhaps not. But your father is. (1) He went on a mission for us and has not reported back in three days. Frankly, we're getting worried." Littleduck said.

"I just spoke to Dad...last week." Launchpad replied, realizing Time had gone and slipped by him as it does when you are busy.

"Ripcord never told you that his Air Show is also a "cover"...that he often helped us uncover nasty going-ons at small airfields?" Littleduck asked.

"I knew he's worked for SHUSH...and I quit working for his air show because just making people forget their problems for awhile wasn't enough for me! I wanted to do something real! That fiasco with the pig was just an excuse!" (2) Launchpad said.

"Your father knew how important it was to you to get out from under his shadow. I thought he might have told you the whole truth by now." Littleduck said.

Meanwhile, what IS my father-in-law (3) Ripcord up to? It seems that FOWL has captured SHUSH agents and was holding them in a secret prison. Ripcord found the prison by accident and palmed himself off as a new FOWL recruit in order to try and free the prisoners. But there were too many real FOWL agents.

Ripcord learned the ins-and-outs of the prison well enough to plan an escape plan, but he needed help to make it work. He did not dare report back to SHUSH, not without risking blowing his cover. Ripcord did not dare leave, lest FOWL get suspicious. Ripcord was stuck.

Back to my Launchpad.  
"Do you know where my father was, when you last heard from him?" Launchpad asked Littleduck.

"That's the strange thing. He had finished the mission we sent him out on. He did report seeing a strange group of buildings, some complex that is not supposed to be there. And that's the last we heard from him." Littleduck replied.

"Where exactly was he then? And what this about buildings that aren't supposed to be there?" Launchpad asked.

"I can tell you exactly where he last reported from. But the buildings he saw are not supposed to be there. There is no record of anybody building anything there and it's off the beaten track, so if something is there, we don't know about it." Littleduck said.

"If Dad said he saw buildings, he must of. Tell me where he was, and I'll go there and look around." Launchpad said.

So Littleduck told Launchpad all he knew about Ripcord's last call in.

"Sharan..." Launchpad began.

I gave Launchpad a hug.

"You be careful. I love you. Go rescue your Dad and bring him- and you- back in one piece, OK?" I said. And then he kissed me.

So Launchpad went to his hanger and took out his most ordinary looking plane, there must be a zillion other planes visually identical to it. And he flew the plane to Ripcord's last recorded location.

Launchpad landed the plane as close to the coordinates as possible and went to snoop around.

Launchpad soon found the buildings, but he knows that being sneaking is not exactly his strong suit. It's hard to be inconspicuous when you're as big as Launchpad is. So he decided to bleep with the shilly-shaying (also definitely NOT his strong suit) and try to bluff his way in.

He grabbed a hard hat and a clip board with a check list on it. Launchpad went right up to the gate of the building and starting writing importantly. He took out a cell phone and started talking to nobody.

"I'm telling you, there a whole bunch of buildings here! Yeah, I KNOW there isn't supposed to be anything here...How do I know how they got here?" Launchpad asked no one. "How am I supposed to survey this area for the new highway we're putting thru here if you're giving me inaccurate information?"(4)

Naturally, the FOWL agents overheard him and thought somebody was building a highway right thru their secret complex. They went to their superiors to report this.

They started arguing about what to do.

"Why don't we just kill him? Plenty of no place to dump the body!" one bad guy asked.

"Nah! Wouldn't do any good! Whoever sent him would send somebody else!"Another said.

"Why don't we convince him we're the good guys? That this is a top-secret prison for bad guys run by the government?" RIPCORD suggested.

"OK, YOU do that. You're the new guy around here, so prove yourself. If youse can convince him that this is a secret jail for very bad people so he goes away and keeps his yap shut, THEN maybe we'll trust you." head bad guy said.

Praying that Launchpad would not automatically greet him with "Dad" or "Father", Ripcord approached Launchpad, with a finger on his "lip". And grabbed Launchpad by his lip, like he did back in "Top Duck" (5)when he saw that Launchpad was about to do so anyway.

"We need you to be quiet about this place. I'm sure as a Patriotic American, you understand the need to rob people of their civil rights by locking them up without trial, jury or judges. Without having to waste time proving they did something wrong. (6)" Ripcord said.

"Of course. The USA would never arrest people for the crime of being born on the wrong side of an imaginary line on a map." Launchpad replied (7), pretending to agree with this sacrificing-our-liberties-to-save-our-freedom "logic".

"Why not tell your boss that you misread your map and that you got lost? There is a old abandoned shopping mall not far from here that can be the buildings you saw." Ripcord suggested.

"You'd have to show me where they are. I can probably convince my boss I goofed- IF I can show him the buildings I saw.' Launchpad said, seeing an opportunity to get his Dad OUT of there.

But of course, four real FOWL agents went along with Ripcord since they didn't trust the "new guy" yet.

They went a short distance out of the compound when Launchpad yelled: "Stop the car!"

"What's wrong?" One Bad Egg asked.

"My car's gone! I parked it right there! Somebody must of swiped it! I gotta call the cops!" Launchpad said. And he took out his cell phone.

Ripcord grabbed it away from him. (8)

"Are you SURE that's where you parked it? The woods around here look all the same. Seen one tree, seen them all." he asked.

"Of course I'm sure! Give me back my cell phone! Something fishy going on around here! I'm scramming!" Launchpad said. Launchpad ran away so, Ripcord in hot pursuit.

The Four Fowl Egg men stared for a second, then pursuited them in their car.

Ripcord, pretending to chase Launchpad, ran. Launchpad ran towards a lake he had seen from the air. It was near to where he had "parked" his plane. As he ran he looked back, as if in fear. To see if his Dad was still following and he tripped on a small rock and fell.

Launchpad took advantage of this by pretending to roll into the lake before he could stop himself. Then he really went into his act:

"Help! I can't swim!" Launchpad.

While there are some ducks who don't know how to swim,(9) Launchpad does.

"You're not getting away that easy!"Ripcord said.

And jumped in after him.

"Hey! You trying to drown me?" Launchpad asked.

"Yes! Dead men tell no tales!" Ripcord said, deep in HIS act.

The four Fowl agents watched as the two "struggled" in the water. they saw them go down...but did NOT see them come up. They waited, and watched the water and the shore. No sign of either of two did they see. They poked the water with long tree branches. Nothing. The bottom was too far down for the longest branch to reach.

"They got to be dead. New guy most of drowned trying to drown that snooper. Rookie mistake." One Fowl agent said, heartlessly.

"Well, we never give the new guys a gun 'till we're sure where they are going to point it." His accomplice replied.

A short distance away, Launchpad and Ripcord climbed out of the sewer pipe they had swum to underwater. (10)

"Son, I hope you don't think I'm ungrateful to you for rescuing me... but maybe you could of come up with a less smelly way?" Ripcord asked, jokingly.

"I was improvising, Dad. This way the FOWL men think their new rescuit drowned in drowning me. But what about the other SHUSH agents locked up there?" Launchpad asked.

"Simple. The snooper's boss got worried when snooper did not report back and sent out the cops to his last reported location..." Ripcord said.

So the "cops"(SHUSH agents)went to investigate...stormed the place and freed the captured SHUSH agents. Including a few they thought were long dead. One rather important one...at least to one nice lady.

Dr. Sara Bellum was there when the freed SHUSH agents returned "home" for debriefing, and ran towards one long thought dead.

"FATHER!" she screamed, surprised and delighted.(11)

**THE END.**  


* * *

  
(1) At this, my Launchpad's ample chin hit the floor.

(2)"Top Duck"

OK, what happened was this: some pigs escaped from their pen. While the animal handler was chasing them, the cow Launchpad was supposed to "rustle" ate thru her rope and wandered off. One of the preforementioned pigs saw the food left to keep the cow on it's "mark" (the cow had tried this trick before)and went to eat it.

Enter Launchpad in his plane, flying fairly fast. He sees a large brown animal standing right where the cow should of been and "rustles" it...only it's a pig. Boy, did he look SILLY!  
One of those days, I guess.

(3) Or "Da", as I call him.

(4) Launchpad's learned a thing or two hanging around Mr. McDee all these years.  
Launchpad got this idea from Mr. McD "snowing" the Beagle Boys by pretending to be a tax assessor in "Super Ducktales"

(5) Towards the end of the story, where it was the only way Ripcord could get Launchpad to quit putting himself down long enough to tell Launchpad how proud he, Ripcord, was of my Launchpad. Thanks, Da.

(6)I DO hope you know I'm being sarcastic, here.  
I don't understand how some people can want to protect America so badly, they're willing to give up what makes America WORTH protecting. This makes sense?

(7)Ditto.  
(8) He's pretending to be a bad guy, remember.

(9) Wild ducks float, not swim. Natural oils in their feathers let them float easily. they can drown easily if something, like crude oil, gunks up their feathers.

(10) Idea borrowed from Russian Ducktales story "Nyata". I looked at the pictures and got the gist of it. I don't read Russian.

(11)Idea borrowed from the DarkWing Duck fanfic "Sara" by  
LuvvyDuck, as by way of apologizing for submitting a rant instead of a review.


End file.
